(b. Grenada County, Mississippi, 9 Oct. 1941) US; member of the US House of Representatives 1972 – 88, US Senator 1988 –   Educated at the University of Mississippi and at Mississippi Law School, Lott practised law and worked for Democratic Congressman William Colmer between 1968 and 1972. In 1972 he was elected to Colmer's seat in the House of Representatives as a Republican and was elected Republican whip in 1980. Lott became a key figure in Republican politics in the 1980s, and organized the Convention platform committees at the Republican conventions of 1984 and 1988, although in 1988 he supported Jack Kemp's abortive presidential bid rather than the candidacy of George Bush.

Lott successfully ran for the Senate in 1988. Once in the Senate he became a natural candidate for Republican leadership positions. Following the 1992 elections, he was elected Republican conference secretary. In 1994, Lott became Senate Republican whip. When in June 1996 Robert Dole resigned from the Senate majority leadership to concentrate on his presidential campaign, Lott was elected Republican leader. A tax-cutting and cultural conservative by instinct, Lott nevertheless tempered his partisanship and showed an early ability to negotiate both within his own party and with Democrats. There had been a general feeling that the Senate had become grid-locked and it was hoped that Lott would be able to improve its workings by cultivating a more open leadership style and by concentrating on the legislative business rather than campaigning. Lott's election to the post of Senate majority leader also reduced the ideological distance between the Republican leadership in the Senate and the House and put both leadership positions firmly in the hands of conservatives.

Trent Lott (born 1941) has served in the United States government for over three decades. He was elected to both houses of the United States congress and served subsequent terms as a member from the state of Mississippi.

A U.S. Senator from Mississippi, Trent Lott is a major political figure in the nation's capitol. He first came to Washington as a Democratic congressional aide in the early 1960s. Known for his conservative views, however, Lott served as a Republican in both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. Lott was recognized for his leadership skills in Congress and was able to organize support for important issues among both Republicans and Democrats. Paul Weyrich, a radio news commentator, once described Lott "as a wily Southerner. He likes to make deals, but sometimes, when he feels a great principle is at stake, he can be tough as nails." A skillful politician, the U.S. Senator from Mississippi was elected by fellow senators as Senate Majority Leader on December 3, 1996.

Born on October 9, 1941, in Grenada County, Mississippi, Chester Trent Lott, moved with his family to the costal town of Pascagoula. As an only child, Trent received the full attention and love of his parents. His father, Chester, worked as a shipyard worker who later tried his hand in the furniture business. In a U.S. News & World Report interview with Gloria Borger, Lott described his father as "handsome and outgoing, and I always thought he might actually run for office someday."

Lott's mother, Iona, was a schoolteacher and bookkeeper. Iona Lott recalled to Time contributor Dan Goodgame, "People used to say an only child would be spoiled and selfish. And I was determined he wouldn't be that way." She insisted that he share everything, even the pony she and Lott's father gave him before he was ten. Lott was exposed to politics at any early age, as one grandfather was a justice of the peace, and the other grandfather a county supervisor. Lott also had an uncle who was a tax assessor and a state senator.

The family moved to Pascagoula when Lott was in the seventh grade. He adapted to the new location quickly and wasn't afraid to participate in a wide range of activities. During his school years, he played tuba in the band and was a member of the drama club. He also worked part-time at a local rootbeer stand. Among his classmates, Lott was popular and well-respected. In high school, he was elected president of the drama club, president of the student body, homecoming king, most popular, most likely to succeed, and most polite. Goodgame quoted a high school friend who recalled that Lott found time for everyone "from shy girls to the guys we would describe these days as gang members."

With money earned from summer jobs and support from his parents, Lott entered the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) in the fall of 1959. While at Ole Miss, Lott had his first real experience at politics. His freshman year, he pledged the Sigma Nu social fraternity. While he participated in Sigma Nu activities, Lott also made many friends among members of other fraternities and independent student groups. Eventually, he was elected as president of both Sigma Nu and the university's interfraternity council. Cheerleaders at Ole Miss were also elected positions, and running for cheerleader provided Lott another opportunity to gain political skills in forming political blocks, cutting deals and doing door-to-door precinct work.

No African American students attended the University of Mississippi when Lott first entered the school. During Lott's senior year, on September 30, 1962, Air Force veteran James Meredith, protected by armed U.S. marshals, enrolled at Ole Miss. The small group was confronted by rock-throwing students and non-student protestors in violent demonstrations. By the time the violence ended, two people had been killed and many others injured and arrested. Lott worked to keep Sigma Nu fraternity members from taking part. At the same time, he used his campus influence to call for peaceful campus integration. In National Review, Rich Lowry quoted Lott as saying, "Yes, you could say that I favored segregation then. The main thing was, I felt the Federal Government had no business sending in troops to tell the state what to do."

Graduating with a bachelor's degree in Public Administration in the spring of 1963, Lott enrolled in the Ole Miss law school. He subsidized his graduate education with a federal student loan and also obtained a job with the university's recruitment office. Later, he was able to work for the alumni association as a fund raiser, a position that enabled him to make valuable political connections throughout his native state.

While Lott attended law school, the Vietnam War was expanding in scope and troop commitments. Like other college students Lott received a student deferment from the draft. By the time he graduated from law school in 1967 Lott had married Patricia (Tricia) Thompson of Pascagoula and, under Selective Service rules, obtained a hardship exemption due to the birth of their first child, also named Chester.

After graduating from the Ole Miss law school, Lott and his family returned to Pascagoula. For a brief period Lott worked in a private law firm, leaving after less than a year when he was offered a top staff job by Congressman William M. Colmer, a Mississippi Democrat. The Lott family moved to Washington, D.C., in 1968. Tricia Lott explained to Lowry that the family went to Washington "to stay a couple of years and see if we liked it." Political skills learned at Ole Miss in organizing and influencing people earned Lott a reputation as an effective and able congressional aide.

Elected to House of Representatives

When Congressman Colmer announced his retirement from the House of Representatives in 1972, Lott announced his candidacy as a Republican to seek the vacant office. Lott was able to win Colmer's endorsement and support. According to Lowry, Lott explained his party switch by vowing to "fight against the ever increasing efforts of the so-called liberals to concentrate more power in the government in Washington." Lott had a well-organized and tireless campaign. With the aid of the landslide re-election of President Richard Nixon he was able to win the House seat with a vote margin of 55 percent.

Arriving in Washington as a freshman Representative, Lott was appointed to membership on the House Judiciary Committee. As the youngest member of this committee Lott became involved in the 1974 hearings to impeach President Nixon. The president had been implicated in the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at an office complex called Watergate. After the President released tape recordings and transcripts indicating his involvement and a cover-up of the crime, Lott reversed his position as a staunch supporter and joined others in the call for the President's resignation, which occurred less than a week later.

Although Lott had vowed to fight against increased government controls from his seat in the House, he actually supported more federal spending for entitlement programs, farm subsidies, public works projects, and the military. During his 16-year tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives, Lott was never credited with authoring any major legislation. However, he won praise for his work on tax and budget reform. He was an active member of the House, and served on the powerful House Rules Committee from 1975 to 1989. With the support of his fellow Representatives, Lott was elected and served as Minority Whip from 1981-89. As Minority Whip, he was the second ranking Republican in the House of Representatives. He was also named chair of the Republican National Convention's platform committees in 1980 and 1989. Lott, however, did not always support the legislative agenda of his political party. When President Reagan proposed a tax reform bill in 1985, Lott used his political power as Minority Whip to oppose the measure. Two years later, Lott joined with Democrats to override a presidential veto of a highway spending bill which included several highway projects in his home district.

Joined United States Senate

When the Mississippi Democratic Senator, John Stennis, retired in 1988, Lott announced that he would seek the vacant Senate seat. He won the Senate position with a 54 percent majority. As a Senator, Lott continued to focus his political talents on building coalitions and was appointed as a member of the Ethics Committee. He was later appointed as a member of the powerful Senate Budget Committee. Continuing his climb through the ranks of the Senate, Lott was elected as the secretary of the Senate Republican Conference in 1992. In 1994 he won the election for Senate Majority Whip by a one vote margin, making him the first person to be elected Whip in both houses of Congress.

Lott's experiences as House Minority Whip helped him to establish a highly-organized whip system in the Senate. Individual members of Congress were drafted to organize and track colleagues on a regional basis. These regional whips provided daily briefing to Lott on crucial votes. One of the regional whips was also tasked to be on the Senate floor at all times. Lott's ability to work with both parties helped to end what was described in the popular press as budget gridlock. During 1997 budget negotiations, Richard Stevenson, writing in the New York Times, described him as "Trent Lott the bad cop" and as "Trent Lott the good cop." Stevenson reported that Lott's message to both parties was, "I'm going to urge that we not waste time talking about what we disagree on. Let's see where we can find some commonality, where we can begin to come up with agreements that will help the quality of life for all Americans." When the Senate Majority Leader, Bob Dole, announced his plans to retire from the Senate in order to run for President, Lott used his well-controlled whip organization to campaign for the vacant Majority Leader position. His organizational and political skills were rewarded, and he was elected Senate Majority Leader on June 13, 1996.

Campaign financing became the focus of national attention after the re-election of President Clinton in 1996. With reports of improper fund-raising activities by the Democrats, many Republicans called for in-depth investigations of campaign practices. While some called for major campaign reforms, Lott had other views. In an interview with New York Times contributor Katharine Seelye, Lott described his position on this issue, commenting that "I support people being involved in the political process….I think for them to have the opportunity to do that is the American way."

The Senator's stance on other major issues facing the nation were widely known. He articulated his views on numerous radio and television interview shows. He also took advantage of the electronic media and maintained an internet home page stating his position on key political and national issues. In regards to a balanced national budget, Lott declared, "I understand the concerns regarding the Balanced Budget Amendment and want to assure you that I do not take amending our Constitution lightly. However, having watched many futile attempts to reduce the deficit through legislation, I am convinced that an amendment to our Constitution is necessary." Lott also described his position concerning prayer in public schools on this site: "I have consistently advocated strong legislative action in support of the rights of students who wish to participate in voluntary prayer in their schools."

Lott's personal beliefs reflect those of his constituency, and his election to both houses of Congress show his successful representation of the people in his home district and home state. In Congress, his ability to mobilize his fellow Representatives and Senators in support of key legislation was recognized with prominent positions in both houses-as Minority Whip in the House of Representatives, and in the Senate as Majority Whip and later Senate Majority Leader. Lott has the distinction of being the first Southerner to be House Minority Whip and the first person to be elected Whip in both houses of Congress.

Further Reading

National Review, June 30, 1997, pp. 20-23.

New York Times, February 8, 1997; February 21, 1997.

Time, March 10, 1997, pp. 38-39.

U.S. News & World Report, February 24, 1997, pp. 22-24.

Direct Line with Paul Weyrich (live broadcast on radio station KIUSA), December 3, 1996.

Issue Positions,http://www.senate.gov (November 10, 1997).

• Born: Oct. 9, 1941, Grenada, Miss.
• Political Party: Republican
• Representative from Mississippi: 1973–89
• Senator from Mississippi: 1989–
• House minority whip: 1981–89
• Senate majority whip: 1995–96
• Senate majority leader: 1996–

As a Republican from Mississippi, Trent Lott represented the political upheaval of the once “Solid South.” From the 1870s until the 1970s, practically all southern senators and representatives had been Democrats. Lott himself first went to Washington as the administrative assistant to a Democrat, Representative William Colmer. When Colmer retired, Lott was elected to succeed him—as a Republican. It was the beginning of a trend that saw many southerners change party allegiance and the political base of the Republican party shift from the North to the South.

As a congressman, Lott aligned himself with a group of conservative House members known as the “Conservative Opportunity Society,” led by Georgia Representative Newt Gingrich. Seeking to return the Republicans to the majority after decades in the minority, the young conservatives pursued more aggressive legislative tactics than their party' moderate leadership did. They provoked frequent confrontations with the majority party over policy and procedure. Among this group of mavericks, Lott was the first to move into his party's leadership by becoming the minority whip.

In 1988 Lott ran for the Senate and within a few years moved into its leadership as well. He served first as whip and then as majority leader. Since the rules of the Senate give more voice to the minority than the rules of the House, Lott needed to pursue different tactics as a Senate leader. “A Senate majority leader has to be a legislator, moderator, partisan activist, consensus builder, and traffic cop,” he commented, “—often all at the same time.” Although still strongly conservative in outlook, he worked with his Democratic counterparts to accommodate senators of all views.

A skilled legislative tactician, Lott steered the Senate through the emotional impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton in 1999. Rather than run the trial as a partisan affair, Lott convened an extraordinary joint conference of all 100 Republican and

Democratic senators. They met in the Old Senate Chamber to discuss behind closed doorsed the fairest way to conduct the trial. By the time they had emerged, the senators had voted unanimously for a set of procedures, a testament to Majority Leader Lott's grasp of how the often cumbersome Senate could best operate.

(Chester Trent Lott), 1941–, American politician, b. Grenada, Miss. Lott attended college and law school at the Univ. of Mississippi, then briefly (1967) worked with a private law firm. He entered politics as an assistant to a Democratic Mississippi congressman (1968–72). Already a conservative, he became a Republican and was elected to the House of Representatives in 1972, serving as House Republican whip from 1981 to 1989, when he began his first term in the Senate. He became Senate whip in 1995, and when the majority leader, Bob Dole, resigned to run for the presidency in mid-1996, Senate Republicans chose the gregarious, telegenic, and more strongly conservative Lott to succeed him. Lott was subsequently minority leader (2001–3), resigning after he was widely criticized for remarks at a birthday party for Senator Strom Thurmond in which he implied that the United States would have better off if the 1948 presidential election had been won by Thurmond (who ran on a segregationist platform). Lott was chairman of the Senate committee on rules and administration from 2003 to 2007, when he again became Senate Republican whip.

Bibliography

See his autobiography (2005).